


Heart

by babel



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:02:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/pseuds/babel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak carries out Tain's order. (Originally posted in 2006.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart

This is a lesson.

I know that it's a lesson as soon as I get the message. One word: Heart.

The irony is not lost on me.

I now know why I was told not to vaporize the target. And with that one word that speaks volumes in the language that Tain and I have always shared, I know that it will be a long night.

Best to keep things simple. I pull the blanket off of the target's bed and lay it out on the floor. Then, I drag the body into the center, or as close as I can approximate. It is a thick winter blanket. It should soak up everything.

I look down at the target. He looks asleep. At the moment, there are no marks on him except for a tiny one behind his left shoulder between two scales, where I injected the poison while his kissed me. His pants are still on, and he's erect underneath them. I'd been touching him there not very long ago.

Tain says that there is no easy way to learn a lesson, but I can't help but think that this is also a punishment. But if I had learned the lesson when he had merely spoken the words "you don't choose the target," this would not be as difficult as it is now.

The target keeps an old, but well-kept, hunting knife in his desk drawer. He showed it too me once, because he was the trusting sort. My type, Tain says. But I think that it is more that the distrusting sort would have nothing to do with me in the first place. And with the corpse of my now former lover in the middle of his own bedroom, I could hardly blame them.

Heart. Not the most subtle symbolism.

The knife is sharper than I expected, and the target's slender scaled belly opens easily under its blade. The knife had been the only thing from his father's estate that he hadn't been forced to sell for food and housing. I'm not sure if it is appropriate to use this knife or not, but appropriate has nothing to do with this. That is part of the lesson.

It is difficult to keep my eyes away from his erection. That is where my hand was when he died, working on the delicate flesh to encourage his heart to pump the toxin throughout his system faster. The same heart I'm touching now with feigned clinical detachment, searching for abnormalities.

He'd had the surgery a month ago, just after I'd met him. Tain was there when we met. I remember the look he gave me. It had been a warning. One that I had ignored.

My fingers brush a strange bump in the tissue. I use the knife to carefully cut around it, so that I don't damage the tiny filament that he has died for.

Perhaps I am a coward for not using his name.

I dry the blood off of the piece I took out of him and pocket it. I stand again, the knife in my hand dripping black from its feast. I feel a camaraderie with it. His father's knife. A symbol of loyalty. Of love. I wonder how many meals he sacrificed to keep it.

I wonder if I will keep anything of my father when he dies.

The knife isn't mine, though it is tempting to keep it. I lay it down on the target's undisturbed chest, staining him with his own black blood. I think of touching his hair, but remember myself and my lesson in time to keep from it.

I wrap the target and his knife in the blanket, then vaporize all of it. The only thing left of our story are blackened floorboards and the lesson I have learned.


End file.
